The recent developments of the Sino-Russian relationship, the US-EU relationship, the US-Japan association, the Syrian crisis, Snowden’s asylum in Russia, and the Ukrainian political crisis in recent times, clearly punctuates the sweetness in the Sino-Russian affair, and the bitterness of the EU-Russia-US relationship.
Latest media observations suggest, the vibrant Sino-Russian ties can be very fruitful for South Asian nations, while the crumbling relationships between the US, the EU and Russia are ghastly destabilising the whole of Europe politically, economically, militarily, and even culturally.
The Western propaganda projects these events as “the new Cold War.” Pretty soon, this escalating political-polarisation of the world’s leading regionalities will have an impact in this subcontinent as well.
Let’s talk about a “motivated by business” love story between a crouching Russian bear, and a hidden Chinese dragon. Very recently, a startling news covered world wide stated that the world’s fastest growing economy, China, and the energy superpower Russia have sealed a 400 billion dollar gas deal.
This historical deal, so far, is the biggest between states. According to the deal, the Russian state-owned oil company Gazprom will supply 38 billion cubic metres of gas to the China National Petroleum Corporation for 30 years, starting from 2018.
This kind of deal is lucrative due to its huge volume, and its multi-dimensional applications and indications for the global political-economy of the future. For that reason, the deal is a major blow to the West while they were collectively busy showering economic sanctions on the Russian Federation regarding the Ukraine issue.
Why will there be a love story between a bear and a dragon? Which sky was the eagle flying in, if it considers itself the ruler of the jungle? What will happen to the historical half-century-long engagements between the eagle and the dragon? Why is the dragon suddenly in love with the bear after being at odds throughout the cold war era? Wasn’t the eagle concerned?
It is understandable that the US was concerned about the possible change in the global economic order. It has been pin-popinted by two American think-tanks. US foreign policy expert Zbigniew Brzezinski advocated the importance of Sino-US partnership in his 2009 write-up in the financial times, where he named that proposed relationship the Group of two, or the G2.
The article was titled “Group of two that could change the world.” In that advisory article, Brzezinski concluded by saying that the US should work on the expansion of the G8 to G14 or G16 which should include China and other major states in it, and creating an informal G2 of the US and China, paralleling relations between them with Europe and Japan.
A similar kind of thought was expressed by another US foreign policy pundit Henry Kissinger in his article published in The Independent on January 20, 2009. It was titled “The world must forge a new order or retreat the chaos” where he backed Brzezinskis idea by saying that the future global economic order will depend on how China and America deal with each other over the next few years.
After a bitter-sweet, silent, long walk together on a road to prosperity for half a century, the unadventurous relationship between China and the US is now in the “pre-separation phase,” and eventually it will tear apart.
In defence of my statement, let me first focus on recent Chinese foreign policy statements. If you observe carefully, you will find that the essence of Chinese foreign policy mainly focused on ensuring a peaceful and harmonious environment for the country, creating encouraging conditions for its economic growth, and “not interfering” in international conflicts which do not affect its vital interests directly or indirectly.
So, we see there is no room for China to take the world’s “clash-burden” on its shoulders solely with the US. China has no interest in getting involved even in the Indo-Pak crisis, the Arab-Israel conflicts, or any other conflict as an ally of the US. China has a small peacekeeping force which is operating under specific United Nation programmes. On the other hand, China may not be able to afford a war economy with the US in the foreseeable future.
Secondly, the human rights groups, working in the US and/or outside, who voice frequently against China, and want Tibet and Taiwan’s independence, can get exasperated by that day-dream of the US and China pact.
Thirdly, NATO partners of the US will not accept any close rapprochement towards Beijing. Any utopian Sino-US relationship could hatch brand new possibilities for inter-state relations, and may cause the EU to incline towards Russia.
Fourthly, the conflict of ideals between the US and China on capitalism and communism will not perish in the near future; while a wing of the US promotes “democracy” worldwide, their other wing is busy in branding China as “the largest authoritarian state of the world.” So, there is no place for Ideological understanding.
And the final reason, of course, is the economy. China has a growing concern for their investment in the US (According to the IMF, China is currently the largest holder of foreign currency reserves, 54% of its $3.2tn in foreign reserves are in US dollars). In this regard, China has already warned the world that if America continues to borrow too much money to keep up with the excessive spending, the dollar may collapse. The White House had to reassure the world that investing in the US is the safest in the world. Even then, the White House assurance was not enough to relieve or ease the apprehension in China.
Understanding the gaping hole between the current position of the respective systems, and the dark future of the few times the opposing ideals have tried to co-operate with the US-led western politico-economic system, the Russian Bear and the Chinese dragon have come closer to form a new economic bloc that can be the most scientific model that has the potential to bring sustainable, mutually prosperous results.
For instance, China has geared up the Shanghai Cooperation organisation (SCO) and BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South-Africa) which are supposed to be the alternatives to the US-lead alliances such as G7.
Amongst those mutual prosperity focused organisations, the BRICS has all chances to become the most influential of all international associations. It includes Russia, the energy superpower, the center for knitting the interests of major non-western centers of a multi-polar world.
But, history tells us that China and Russia were rivals in the cold war period. Interestingly, their historical rivalry ended when the world badly needed to get rid of the “West-led” globalisation for its non-success, tyranny, and bedlam.
Recently, Russian representation and attention in the Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and EAC (East Asia Community) indicates that the Russian federation is more interested in the Asian relationship than the “expansionist” EU.
There are strong reasons for the Sino-Russian declination from the European Union as well. The geographical distance between China and Europe is very far from that of Russia. Russia has the world’s biggest conserved energy and China needs more energy to support its development programmes to keep rolling and progress.
On the other hand, if we put some light on the EU, we can clearly see that the recession riddled European Union needs massive changes to its policies because of its failure to protect all of their member countries from the decade long economic downturn.
Only Germany sees steady economic growth rate under the umbrella of the EU, but other countries such as Italy, Greece, Portugal, and Spain have been suffering. However, some western academics proposed that Germany – the leader of EU should take the responsibilities for other nation’s sufferings. The recent EU poll suggested a huge uprising of euro-skeptic parties in Germany, France, Spain, Greece, and the UK.
It is a clear sign of people’s dissatisfaction over EU policies, where countries like Greece suffer from 24% unemployment. Taking into account these adverse situations for long-lasting mutual growth, it was very clear to China that Russia is a more suitable candidate for a long-term relationship.
On the other hand, the latest Ukraine crisis has added salt to the EU-Russia relationship which was already suffering first degree burns due to the Syria conflict. Now, the EU and the US are jointly and aggressively trying to expand their sphere of influence in Ukraine, a country very important for Russian security, a country in which 40% of the citizens are ethnic Russians.
As a result, Russia voiced against that US-EU made conflicts in Ukraine which have already allowed running riots in favour of Neo-nazis, taken a thousand lives, erupted into civil war, and has torn the country to shreds.
Later, the western powers collectively threw economic sanctions against Russia for supporting eastern Ukrainean freedom fighters, and these sanctions created a collective push for Russia to move towards Asia briskly, and make strong ties with the eastern nations and states for long-term mutual benefits.
The Gazprom Gas deal with China is without doubt a positive consequence of the failure of US-led “Globalisation” effort and a success of the multi-polar doctrine. So, the romantic relationship between a Bear and the Dragon was forced to be unavoidable.
What is next? Only the prelude of the love story between a crouching bear and a hidden dragon has been published, and the beginning chapters indicate that the eagles – US-led western powers – are villains who tried to put obstacles in the name of “democracy” and economic sanctions against China and Russia.
Let’s wait for the rest of the story. But, keep it in mind that the essence of Sino-Russia multi-polarity has no room for aggression, on the other hand it unleashes the vigor of self-determination in culturally diversified places and countries.
So, there is no doubt that this love story between two countries will be a romantic and long-lasting one because of its sustainable ideology against the US-led uni-polar world concept.
In this qualitative global context, the increasing centre power of emerging economic partnerships of China, Russia, India, South Africa, and Brazil are extremely important for the world’s prosperity, economic stability, and peace.
Even for a foreign trade dependent country like Bangladesh, the ties with India, China, and Russia need to be tightened to attain a sustainable growth rate, to effectively resolve the disputes with India. And bilateral ties with other BRICS countries should go through intensive review.
This is the right time for Bangladesh, when we should dissolve and resolve the differences with our neighbours like India and Myanmar to prepare our country for the new multi-polar challenges and opportunities. We should bear in mind that Bangladesh, like so many other developing countries, has the huge financial and business dependency on the west.
